Mnemosyne
by Lunar Lilly Muse
Summary: A collection of memories from my 'The Time Has Come' character, Alliyah Young. If you want to know all about her past, CLICK HERE! Hint, hint Erica!
1. Mother

**Mnemosyne**

**Lunar Lilly Muse**

**_Chapter 1: Mother_**

"For the last time, honey, there's no such thing as monsters." Meilin Young lovingly ruffled her youngest child's, Alliyah, hair.

"It's not the monsters I'm worried about." Her teenage son, Chase, remarked from his bed across the room. "Just tell the little bratto keep the screaming to a minimum." Alliyah whimpered and looked to her mother for support. Meilin stroked her cheek.

"Ssh, ssh. It's okay _Jia_." 'Jia' was Meilin's nickname for her daughter. It meant beautiful in Chinese. A name that would have truly fit her daughter, with her silky, shiny raven black hair and jade green eyes.

Meilin had wanted to name her little girl Jia, but her husband, Jun-Li, had blatantly refused. He named the girl Alliyah, after his mother, the former mistress of the Zodiac Talisman. He had always hoped one of his children would take over the responsibilty one day. It was unfourtunate that he would never get to see it happen. Jun-Li had died, along with many other men, protecting their village from barbarians. Being a single parent had proved quite difficult, but if anyone could manage it, it was Meilin.

Meilin glared at Chase. "Chase Young, Alliyah's just a little girl!" She scolded. "She's bound to frighten easily. Don't you remember how you were when you were her age?" Chase merely snorted and turned on his side with his back to his family. Meilin sometimes wondered what had happened to her young son to make him act so inhumane. Granted, he was seventeen, almost ready to leave the house, so he probably wouldn't see eye-to-eye with a seven year old girl. But still...

Meilin got up from the edge of the bed. Sleep was sounding pretty good about now. "Good night, my darlings."

"No! Please don't go Mommy!" Alliyah wailed. She stuck out her arms and snatched onto the front of her mother's shirt. It had been almost a year since her father had died, but Alliyah was still terrified of leaving her mother's side. It made bedtime quite difficult.

Her mother carefully pried off Alliyah's hands and laid them back on the bed. "Alliyah, it is time for bed!" She said, her paitence wearing thin. Alliyah started to whimper, and then burst into tears. Suddenly, Chase walked over to Alliyah's bed. He sat on the edge and pulled Alliyah into his lap.

"If this is the only way to get some sleep..." He grumbled. He leaned over and began to sing, more like whisper, an old lullaby her remembered his father had sung to him many years ago.

"Winter, spring, summer and fall. Winter, spring, summer and fall. Four season, four loves. Four seasons, four loves." He remembered that the song went on for much longer, but the extra verses were far beyond his memory now.

Fourtunateley, it was all Alliyah needed. She had stopped crying the moment Chase had started to sing. Chase gave her a quick squeeze. "There, better?" Alliyah nodded. He picked her off of his lap and tucked her back under the covers.

Meilin smiled. "That was very sweet of you." She whispered to Chase. Chase rolled his eyes.

"Please, I only did that so I could get some sleep." But Meilin knew that was a lie. Chase had an overpowering, unwavering love for his sister. He hated to see or hear her cry.

"Good night." She whispered once more before blowing out the candle.

**I deleted BTGE because I didn't like the direction it was going in. I just decided to do a story of her memories, like the other authors. Oh, and see if you can guess thespecial meaning behind the title!I know that was short, but it was the best I could do right now. I hope you all keep reading! **

**Much Luv,**

**Zoey**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown. Or the lullaby. That came from Avatar.**


	2. A Safe Life

**Mnemosyne**

**Lunar Lilly Muse**

_**Chapter 2: A Safe Life**_

"ALLIYAH, WAKE UP!" Alliyah Young's eyes snapped open.

"What?" She mumbled sleepily. Chase's dark silhouette swam in her vision. He grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her into an upright position.

"Alliayh, come on! We have to hurry! The barbarians are attacking the village!" He scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the house.

"Chase! What's going on! And what about Mommy?" Chase didn't answer her. He just kept running until they reached the edge of the village. The two could only watch in horror as their village, their only home, was being destroyed by madmen. A small, last minute group of men were trying to fend off the barbarians with little luck. Alliyah's green eyes grew wide with terror as she watched people being slaughtered, crops being raided and homes being burned to the ground.

"NO! NO!" She cried. "MOMMY? MOMMY!" She tried to wriggle out of Chase's grasp, so she could find her Mommy, but it was no use. Chase held onto her with everything he had. He knew that they had already lost their mother, he wasn't about to lose Alliyah.

"Alliyah, stop it!" He ordered. Alliyah screamed and tried to push his tight arms off of her.

"Let me go! Let me go!" It was no use. No matter how she kicked and screamed, she couldn't break free. She resigned herself to sobbing like the orphan child she now was. "Mommy...Mommy...I told you not to go." She wept. Chase held her to his chest and buried his face in her hair.

"I know this hurts, but there's nothing we can do now. At least Mot-..._Mommy's_ in a better place." He murmured. "Hush now little _Jia_. We have to leave." And then he hurried away, until the devastated village could not be seen, and the screams could no longer be heard.

* * *

"Chase, no!" Alliyah screamed. "Please don't leave me here!" She wrapped her arms around his legs and started to cry. Chase carefully unwound her arms from his legs and picked his little sibling up.

"Alliyah, try to understand. I can't look after you right now and this temple may be your only chance of a safe life."

"But..but...I want to go home!" Alliyah buried her face in Chase's shoulder. Chase pulled her face away and cupped her chin in his hand.

"Hush, I promise to come for you as soon as I find a new home for us. And that will be soon, I promise. Here-" Chase pulled something out of his pocket. "I saved this from the house. It used to belong to your Grandma. Remember Grandma?" Alliyah shook her head. "No matter. I'm sure you'll love it anyway." He held up a necklace. It was of an amber charm that looked like an animal's paw. It hung on a black rubber cord. Carefully, he twined it around Alliyah's neck. "When I come back for you, we can put this on Mommy's grave, where it belongs."

"Promise?" Chase smiled weakly.

"Promise. Now go." He set her down on the ground and gently pushed her towards an old man wearing monk's robes. "Remember, I'm only gone for the moment." He whispered.

"Chase?" Alliyah whimpered. She turned around, but he was gone. She felt a large hand on her shoulder.

"Come now, little...Alliyah. We have much to talk about. Starting with that necklace of yours..."

**Another chapter down! Hope you enjoyed it!**

**Much Luv,**

**Zoey**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown.**


	3. Aletia

**Mnemosyne**

**Lunar Lilly Muse**

_**Chapter 3: Aletia**_

Alliyah threw herself down on the floor of the storage closet, being careful to pull her feet in before quietly closing the door. She brought her knees up to her chin, wrapped her arms around her legs and started to rock back and forth on her bottom. The rocking was something she always did when she felt stressed out. Maybe, long ago, someone had held her in their arms and rocked her like this, which was why she liked it so. Or maybe no one had. Alliyah couldn't remember. Living at the temple for over a year had wiped out any memories of her old life. The only part she had held on to was Chase's promise.

_I'll come back for you. _

Alliyah was starting to think that he had lied.

She ceased rocking when she heard footsteps walking by the closet door. Maybe it was her Master, coming to find her for their daily training session. It gave her a stomach ache just thinking about it.

Supposedly, her necklace was really the Zodiac Talisman. And now her Master, as he liked to be called, was training her to use it. The training sessions were long, grueling and just plain terrible. Alliyah hated them, and her Master knew it. At first, he had been kind and patient, calmly explaining things to her when she asked. But then, as the days dragged by and Alliyah got no better, he started to turn mean and cruel. He would scream often and sometimes beat her. Often Alliyah had gone to bed hungry and sore.

Alliyah practically screamed when the door flung open. Standing in the doorway was, who else, her Master.

"Alliyah!"

"What?" Alliyah whimpered. Master grabbed her by the arms and yanked her upwards.

"On your feet, girl! Do you want our visitors to think that everyone in this temple is as lazy and cowardly as you?" The word "visitors" didn't excite Alliyah like it would a normal eight year-old child. They were probably just more traveling monks, looking for a place to bed down. Her Master half-dragged her down the hallway and out into the courtyard. Alliyah was right on one count, there were two monks standing in the center of the yard. But there was someone else, to Alliyah's great surprise.

A little girl.

She looked younger than Alliyah by roughly two years. Her curly dark brown hair spilled onto her shoulders and gently brushed her back. (Decent haircuts were one luxury residents of a temple had to sacrifice.) She was wearing ceremonial white robes, the kind Alliyah had seen people wear at the shrine in the center of the forest. They were bright white, clearly new, yet they seemed to sag everywhere.

Master's grip on Alliyah's hand turned to bone-breaking strength.

"Alliyah, these two are monks from the Shrine of Wind. And that is their student, Aletia." Aletia smiled when she saw a future playmate. Alliyah sucked in her bottom lip. Master invited the other monks to try some "delicious" Oolong tea. They left the girls to get accquainted.

"Hi, I'm Aletia. I'm six years old and I live at the Shrine of Wind. My favorite meal at the shrine is rice with beef dumplings. But I hate it when the monks make me drink tea. I don't like tea at all." The girl happily babbled on. She was quite an articulate speaker for someone her age. All Alliyah could do was smile and nod and hope that the adults were coming back soon.

**There you go. That was how Aletia met Alliyah, in my mind, that is. In the next chapter, I go more in-depth into their relationship.**

**Much Luv,**

**Zoey**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown.**


	4. Maikaki

**Mnemosyne**

**Lunar Lilly Muse**

_**Chapter 4: Maikaki**_

"Come on, Alliyah! I've been looking forever! Please come out!" Aletia whined. This game of Hide-and-Seek was getting tiresome. Little did she know, Alliyah wasn't hiding anymore. She had been following her friend for the past five minutes!

Alliyah crept up behind Aletia, raised her arms over the girl's shoulders and pulled her into a tight hug.

"Gotcha!" Aletia screamed and wriggled out of the older girl's grasp. She ran a few feet before tripping over the long hem of her robes and falling on her stomach. Instantly, Alliyah appeared beside her. "Are you okay?" She asked in a concerned manner.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Aletia took the hand Alliyah offered and stood up. "Sometimes you worry too much, Alliyah." Aletia said jokingly. "You would worry if you didn't have anything to worry about!" She chuckled but Alliyah frowned. "Oh, wait! That wasn't funny! Sorry!"

"That's okay." Alliyah said distractedly. An awkward silence passed between the two. "Aletia, where did you come from?" Alliyah finally said. The innocent inquiry caught Aletia off guard. Her expression darkened. She crossed her arms and turned away.

"Don't ask me." She murmured.

Family was a taboo topic for the girls. Nobody asked about it, nobody talked about it. But the mystery surrounding her best friend was gnawing at Alliyah. All she really knew about Aletia was that she lived at the Wind Shrine and that she had powers over Wind. Sometimes Alliyah had even heard her talking to it, although could never hear the Wind's response.

Aletia didn't know much about Alliyah either. She didn't even know what Alliyah's necklace's purpose was. The possibility had occurred that Alliyah was an orphan. But then who was this Chase she kept mentioning when no one else was around?

Mysteries aside, the girls made an excellent pair. Alliyah was the cautious, protective, maternal figure Aletia needed. Aletia was the innocent, fun, happy little sister Alliyah had never had. They ran rampant through the Temple and the Wind Shrine when they weren't training together. Aletia could devise the funniest pranks and games, but only with Alliyah's help could she carry them out. With Aletia beside her, Alliyah grew brighter and happier. She started to act more like an eight year-old child rather than a grim warrior.

The girl's melancholy mood was interrupted by the sound of drum music coming from the Temple courtyard.

"Ceremonial music." Alliyah noted. They ran to the courtyard and stopped just outside the gate. Aletia gripped the bars and pressed her face against the metal.

"Wow..." She said. Alliyah stood on tiptoe to peer over the top of the gate. What was going on in there that required ceremonial music?

"Wow..." Was all she could say.

Whatever this was, it was beautiful. A small group of the Temple's monks (mostly women with one or two men) were standing back against the wall. They were wearing their finest clothing. Robes for the men, kimonos for the women. They were watching a girl who looked only a few years older than Alliyah. She was performing a rather intricate dance and held two black lacquered fans. The beauty of _her_ kimono put the dresses of the women spectators to shame.

It was blue, blue like the summer sky, and had a pattern of cranes hand-sewn on it in silver thread. The obi was purest white and it had a pin made of silver and amethyst pinned to it. Her hair was black, shiny and pulled back into a tight bun. Every strand was held in place by a black comb inlaid with amethyst. Her makeup was simple-a touch of dark eyeliner and blood red lipstick. But, wow, did she look amazing.

Alliyah regarded her own appearance. Her hair had grown considerably longer-almost to her waist-and had a few tangles because she had no comb to smooth it. Her outfit was the same set of training robes she wore everyday. They had rips and were a little short on her arms and legs. She had grown taller, but Master hadn't provided her with new clothes yet.

Secretly, Alliyah wished that she could be as beautiful as the dancing girl.

The girls were standing before the gate for a full minute before they realized that the ceremony was over.

"What do you think that was?" Aletia asked dreamily.

"Master explained it to me once. He called it a..a _maikaki_." Alliyah realized she'd need to explain what a _maikaki_ was when Aletia gave her a quizzical look. "It's my Temple's ritual. When a girl is of a certain age, she does this ritual to officially become a woman."

"Oh." Aletia looked longingly back to the empty courtyard. "I don't think we have anything like that at my Shrine." Alliyah put an arm around her friend's shoulders.

"Don't worry. When the time comes...I'll help you complete your _maikaki_." Aletia perked up. She looked to Alliyah with excitement.

"Really?"

"Mm-hm. I'll even do your makeup." Aletia threw her arms around Alliyah's waist, screaming,

"Oh thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" She let go and started to bounce on the balls of her feet. "I wonder what my kimono will look like. I hope it won't be red. I hate red." Aletia skipped away and Alliyah followed. The two spent the rest of the afternoon fantasizing about what their _maikakis _would be like.

**Finally, an update. Just consider it your Christmas present. :) A _maikaki _is something I made up. And, if anyone is confused as to why Aletia and Alliyah train together: the way I imagine it, Aletia's Master and Alliyah's Master are close friends. So, even though their pupils are being trained in different arts, they like to keep the girls close together.**

**Much Luv,**

**Zoey**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown. **


	5. Freeze

**Mnemosyne**

**Lunar Lilly Muse**

_**Chapter 5: Freeze **_

"So, if now's not the right time, then when is?" Aletia asked, curious, as she went on walking beside Alliyah. They'd manage to escape work for the day by going out into the forest to play. Alliyah, the leader of this expeidition, was pinning her hopes on the thought that Master might not send someone to find them, since they had already been out there so long. He would wait the girls out, though, knowing that both of them would come running back home when the sun began to set. They hated the dark.

Alliyah ground the stem of a dandelion in her teeth, the bitter fluid that squeezed out reminding her of what the tea tasted like the last time she had tried to make it.

"I don't know." She said irritably, wishing that Aletia would stop asking her, as she didn't feel like talking. "But soon," She added as an afterthought. "We'll make those running away plans soon."

Aletia grabbed the collar of her cloak, nodding weakly.

Neither one knew when the urge to get out of their respective training began. It had started as a crawling sensation underneath their skin at the thought of another day among monks; and when the longing to go to a real school began overriding the enjoyment of the tutoring they had grown up with. Sooner or later, the thought of actually making a break for it became a part of their conciousness, and then there was no going back on it.

For now, though, this little "Play Hooky" tactic was as far as they would take their rebellion.

It was good enough.

Lost in thought, Alliyah didn't notice Aletia climbing up the steep side of a small bluff covered in big rocks. The smaller child called out, "See you in a minute! Wind's calling me over here!", and that was what snapped her out of her trance.

"H...hey! Aletia, get back here! Don't move!" She called, as if her words would be enough to freeze her in place. She scarbled over the other side of a boulder at the tob of the bluff anyway and was lost from sight. Alliyah tried to climb up after her, but couldn't manage the jagged, loose rocks in her heavy boots and long cloak. She tried, but she kept scraping and slipping and wasn't yet strong enough to have any real physical strength. She had to jump down, standing anxiously at the bottom of the incline, waiting for Aletia to return.

An hour passed, Alliyah began to feel cold in her cloak. It had seeped through the fabric and goat fur lining, and stayed trapped between the layers, keeping her body insulated by freezing air.

More time passed, but she couldn't tell how long. Cold wind began to blow, playing with her hair and chapping her exposed face. Staying outside for this long in late autumn had been a mistake, she decided.

A little over twenty minutes after she'd first begun waiting, she'd sat down on the frosty ground. Bigger mistake. The cold had seeped through her clothes and moved through her limbs, sapping their strength, so now she couldn't even get off of the ground. Quietly, she sighed, letting her chin fall to her chest, eyes closing...

Only minutes after that, Aletia's curly brown head poked over the top of the bluff. Not noticing her friend's odd stance, she started to scramble back down the rocks, calling down to Alliyah the whole time about the little waterfall Wind had showed her and how clear and mirrorlike the pond under it was and wouldn't it be perfect if they made that spot their personal sancturary?

"...I lost track of time there. So sorry I'm so late." She ended the story just as she reached Alliyah's side. When she didn't look up, or even acknowledge Aletia's prescence, the girl gave her a little prod, thinking that maybe she was asleep. Instead, Alliyah slumped backwards and fell over, exposing the real situation.

Aletia gasped, kneeling down to take her pale, bluish face into her hands. She slipped her own mittens onto Alliyah's chapped, dark red, frostbitten hands and pulled her head into her lap. She looked like a porcelain doll, with her white, white skin stretched tight across her weary bones and her chest stiff under Aletia's hands.

_A doll. _Aletia thought. _In other words: helpless._

_---------------------------------------------------------------------------_

The journey back to her own temple was a long one, and one that was hazy in Aletia's memory. If it wasn't for the girl in her arms and the Wind at her back, she never would have been able to make it back before sunset, and then they would have been stranded.

Even the arrival wasn't too clear. She remembered seeing a higher-up monk, waiting at the gate once he'd spotted her, ready to scold. And then, it was like someone had pressed the fast forward button, and she could only remember being carried into her room, and curling up, literally, in the mound of fuzzy blankets that had been placed on her usually bare sleeping mat. With warm soup circulating through her system, she fell right to sleep, the thought of Alliyah barely rising to the surface of her mind.

If only Alliyah had it so easy.

She lay awake half the night, even after her freezing temperature was elevated and remedied, shaking in her mat, kept half-awake, half-asleep by nightmares of little demons of wind with claws made of ice. Scratching her face, her limbs, her protective clothing, anywhere they could reach until they cut her open...

And when she awoke again the next morning, she had the exclusive pleasure of seeing her Master first thing, standing over her, glaring down. She started to murmur something about getting lost and near death experiences, but he wouldn't hear it. Called her a liar and a disgrace. Smacked her in her wounded face. And then uttered the words that, deep down, she knew she was going to hear because of this misadventure.

_"...You're never going to see that girl again."_


End file.
